Build V16 contains the following:

- AI model: This is the big improvement in V16. GJ's updated AI model now allows aliens to share information and LOS with each other. This means that aliens will now be able to fire on Xenonauts beyond the sight range of the shooting alien if it is in the LOS of another alien, and they will be harder to sneak up on without reaction fire if a Xenonaut unit has been spotted. They'll also try to avoid standing in each others' line of fire.

There's also been some improvements with regard to psionics. The aliens should now use them (though you probably won't encounter psionic aliens in this build), but they're also limited to being used on humans in LOS of the alien team. General shooting priority for the aliens should be a bit more sensible now - they'll prioritise more dangerous units (Xenonauts) over harmless units like civilians etc.

The AI model will continue to develop; we'll announce more about this in the coming days.

- New tilesets: The way we're making our tilesets means that none of them are actually finished yet, but we have now made enough progress on the Arctic, Desert and Middle East tilesets that we can build basic maps out of them. I've not had time to add the maps for the Middle East tilesets yet, but I've put together a couple of maps for the Arctic and Desert tilesets. In both cases the tilesets are far from finished - they don't have their (waist high) cover props in place yet, and a lot of tiles haven't been painted over or fully set up in the game, and the UFO crash sites use the Industrial tileset art - but they should still be fun to spend a bit of time playing with. As I'll mention in our beta plans update in the next few days, I expect to make a lot of progress on the tilesets in the next month or so.

- Soldier Role Badges: On the Soldier Equip screen, there are now some big red squares next to the soldier rank icons. These are placeholder icons for the soldier role badges, but the full functionality is there. Clicking (or maybe right-clicking) on the badge will let you equip a soldier with the default loadout for that role, or to change the default loadout for that role, or to change the soldier role. Please test this thoroughly; the coder thinks there's plenty of scope for it to be full of bugs.


Unfortunately, there's a few things we were hoping to include that haven't made it into this build because of the wonders of time zones. We'll probably release V16.1 on Monday or Tuesday, which will include the following updates:

- Overdamage: This system will set a HP threshold value for items. If it is ever exceeded from a single source of explosive or hypervelocity damage (it's all or nothing) to the alien carrying the items or the tile they are sitting on, the items will be destroyed. Basically, this means you can use tank cannons and missiles to kill aliens if you like, but there won't be much left to recover afterwards. Small arms fire shouldn't destroy any alien equipment.

- Soldier Portraits: We should have 41 new soldier portraits to put in the game. They are the first 41 $200+ Kickstarter backers to send us their pictures. I think some of these are really cool, actually.

- Improved Tilesets & Middle East Tileset: I'll put together a couple of maps for the Middle East tileset, and we'll have some updates and improvements on the Arctic and Desert tilesets too.

- More animations: A bunch of things were rendered out when I was away, which are currently being processed. They should be done for the next build, which will have a load more civilian types for the Town tileset and should have sprites for the Xenonauts using the alien weapons too, with more to follow.

Right, with that done, I'm going to go and try the new X-Com! Let me know if there's any critical bugs.